The year 2016 will be remembered as the debut of consumer virtual
reality (VR), with key ambassadors in the form of Facebook/Oculus,
HTC/Valve, Sony, Samsung, and a collective community of companies in
China planting their stakes in the ground with formidable investments in
jump-starting a new computing platform.

After a shaky start, Facebook's Oculus Rift and HTC/Valve's VIVE started
selling in the U.S. in 3Q 2016 and are stabilizing their ecosystems and
distribution in 4Q 2016, as they are joined by Sony with the debut of
PlayStation VR. A number of lessons have been learned since the 1990s
when consumer VR last generated this much hype, with huge strides having
been made in terms of creating compelling content and a convincing level
of immersion.

Getting users to experience VR technology firsthand, and therefore truly
understand its potential, remains a challenge, but the emergence of
low-cost mobile VR solutions is helping. Even so, some industry
participants strongly believe that anything requiring the user to wear a
cumbersome device will ultimately fail. The stakes are high given the
huge amount of money invested in the industry by some of the world's
biggest companies.

Consequently, industry players continue fine-tuning their products so as
not to muddy the water for all involved. It is believed that these
efforts will bear fruit in the coming years, and that combined revenue
for head-mounted displays (HMDs), VR accessories, and VR content will
increase from $453.6 million in 2015 to $35.0 billion worldwide in 2021,
representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 133%.